Mat for Dancers

Hi, I'm Trish McCarty, I'm with my friend ore and we're going to show you a Mac class. It was the little bit more emphasis for dancers. Okay. Or if you'll just go ahead and lay down on your back please. All right, so we're going to start by warming up the spine a little bit. So we have the heels right across from the sit bones and like to see the heels about six inches away from the sit bones and that lovely enough alignment of the knees over that second toe. We come to the pelvis, it's in its neutral position. And we also come to the shoulders where I see lovely with across his shoulders and a lovely long neck. Now the hands are reaching down beside the body.

And what I want you to feel like you're taking your [inaudible] and you're putting them down in the fingertips of your hands. All right? So that we pulled the scapulars down the back. Let's take it in hell. And during your exhale, let's curl the pelvis up slowly. Bone by bone, great and hold. And we don't want to go too high because we arch the back. Let's take another inhale please. And axle the soften the chest and this wall, that spine back down, keeping those shoulders nice and wide.

And let's take another inhale please. And it's exhale this. Curl the pelvis up slowly. Think of the thighs reaching the shins. Reaching right, right there. Take another inhale please. And a XL. We roll that spine back down. And let's do one more and stay up there a moment. And this, this is bring your heels in a little bit closer to you. Take your inhale please.

And Xcel is curl the pelvis up slowly. Greatness. Hold their moment. So I have, or in a bridge. Now I'm going to put a little coordination into this. I want you to flex your left foot here and your right foot. I want you go up onto a Rella VA. All right, so we have one foot up, one heel up. Now we're going to switch and we're going to keep this stabilize.

Good. And we switch. Excellent. And we switch. Let's do one more please. Good. And we sweat. And this, bring both heels back down onto the carriage and let's roll that spine back down. Great. Let's try that one more time. All right, so let's start with the other foot. Let's say heart inhale place and Xcel is curl. The pelvis up is rural at right up there. All right, now let's get our feet ready. So we flex one and we Relevate the other one and then we're down here and we go switch. Excellent. And switch. Good.

And switch and do one more and switch. Very good. And then lower your heels back down and then wall that spine back out and stretch. Right. Great. Let's go ahead and extend the legs all the way out now. All right, so we're here. You might want to scoot back just a little bit or just a little bit, right?

So we're stretching the theater. Going to softly point. All right, so oars, laying down. Nice long body, beautiful architecture of the body. So while we're getting to is we're going to slide our legs up with the toes, touching the mat at all times. So you bend your knees and you just slide right into the hips, right? And then you press back out and stretch. Good. And we do it again. Go to, so what I'm looking for is my dancer to flex at the hips and they keep that pelvis absolutely stabilized. Let's go three. Good and back out. Good.

And let's go to a flex point and a stretch four. So we go up one, bend your knees and stir. Rach, we go to and stretch. We go three and stretch. And we flex.

Flex and 0.1 more time. So we go one and stretch and two and stretch. Good. Three and stretch. And we flex. Good. And we point. Now let's put our arms into this. All right, so on one we bring our arms to first on to, we bring our arms to fifth. On three we hold the arms out the second and then we flex and we point with the arms on second and then we bring it back in. All right, so we have the bottom half of the body going.

We're keeping that neutral spine and now we've added the top half. Now what you're looking for as a teacher is for your student to hold that pelvis in a neutral because eventually we're going to be standing up, sitting up doing this and we want to see that lovely structure to the spine. So here we go. Or this go go in one and reach up too and reach out three and reach. And we flex and we point, we go first and reach up to fifth and reach out to second and reach.

And we one more time in stretch. We go one and two and three and flex and stretch. Very good. And bring your arms back down. Let's go ahead to a sitting position now. All right. All right, so now I have war sitting up. So he's on the sharpest point of the sit bones. He can find, he has that nice alignment and the legs are extended out and he can put his hands to the side of the body and then hold that backups.

So we're looking for the ear, the shoulder, the mid rib and hip to line up with the natural curve. All right, now he's gonna repeat the same thing with the legs. So he goes, legs up and stretch, legs up, bend, stretch, legs up, bend, stretch. We flex, we stretch one and two. Now you'll notice what we're looking for is for this to stay stable, that we don't see that round and flax around. And Flex and flex are very good. Now let's do this thing. Arms. All right, so we go one and stretch up two and stretch open three and stretch. We flex. We'd stretch one and stretch up two and stretch and three side and flex.

One more time and one and stretch to the FIP Sioux this second and stretch and the flex and stretch. Very good. All right, go ahead and let's roll that spine back down to that lane position. Right? Good. So we know dancers, especially ballet dancers, have to stand around and turn out a lot. And that's most of their life is standing in positions that require a lot of turnout. So this next exercise is to help your dancers to really discover that turnout and to reinforce the good turnout pattern in the hip joint. So what we're going to do, the arms are down here, the architecture of the bodies back into that very beautiful alignment.

We're going to bend our knees and bring our feet up, toes touch the carriage, and we hold some point your feet and just toes. And then we're going to open the knees outwards, right? And then we're going to extend the legs back out. So that's one. So we're looking at the flex of the hips, then pubs to stay a little like that. Punchbowl with no movement and to the lower back habits.

Natural curve the whole time. So here we go, we go, one open stretch and two open stretch and three open stretch and four open. Let's do one more time and five reach and stretch. Let's reverse and out to gather. Stretch again. You're looking at the hips, you're looking at that pelvis. Sustain its neutral position too.

We go three together we go. Four open, close, reach out. Let's do one more. We open, we close. Very good. And reach out. So lots of turn out through the hip joint. All right, so you're looking for your dancer to do that in smooth position that they're not really forcing our trainer crank that turnout that you're seeing the pelvis maneuver. All right? These hip joints have got lasts a long time, so you've got to really teach your dancers. Let's take care of the hips a little bit. All right?

My next exercise that I work with a lot with dancers is they have to stand in a position called Alice at comb, so they have to stand on one leg and reach the leg out to the side. So we have a exercise here that's going to help develop that. All right, so let's bend our right leg it up to a table top. Extend your foot all the way up to the ceiling. All right, now this leg is going to reach towards the front of the room. Your hip is going to come off. Now you're going to take this hand over here and place it behind your sacrum and you're going to swing the leg open over here.

You put my hand there and this leg is strong and it's a flex foot. Here. We're standing on it and there's that Alice, that cone position. We're looking for this, close that leg. Bring it down. Let's remove that hand again. All right, so let's do this like again, so he devil pays the leg up to the ceiling. Nice long stretch, a nice well-placed pelvis. He reaches a like over your dancer, gets a little stretch here. Now you can have them really think about their obliques here by pulling that oblique back down and reaching that leg out to the side and there is his Alice of cone position. Let's try the other side please. All right, so nice strong standing leg.

They have to stand on that like that's their foundation that's holding the upper body up. We're looking for the neutral spine also that they're not curling that spine. Try to increase that Alison cone position. Here we go. We don't pay the other leg. It goes up to the ceiling. It reaches all over the body. There's a lovely stretch quality right here.

He opens the leg out, he holds her hand back there kind of presses that hip forward. This leg is strong. There's Alice, that cone, bring it back down. Let's do it one more time and we double pay that leg up and reach and we go open. Very good and we bring it back in and we open that out to second and bring it back down to that position. Very good. And bring it in. Good. So I'm going to take a exercise from the bolt [inaudible] vocabulary.

Now we're going to take that right leg and we're going to devil up. Pay It up to the ceiling. All right, now I'm looking for hips to be square and nice leg and what we're going to do is make little circles up there. So we're in crust the body. We're going to bring it down, around and back up. We go over again. We're looking for the palace to maintain its stability and up go over down our ground and stop over, down around, and stop.

We bend that knee without moving the pelvis. We slide this leg back out at pelvis. The still, we bend this knee, we reach it up to the ceiling again and across. Crosses the body over, down, around, back, up, over, down, around, back, up, over, down, around, back, up, over, down, around, back up and bend that knee and bring it back in. Now when I worked with Bruce King, he really followed Joe. He wanted a very large movement, so let's do it. Joe's version. All right, so we bend the knee and we bring it up to the ceiling. The leg reaches across the body. The hip comes off, we pull, we center that hip, we bring it up, we crossed the body, goes around center and back up over the body, around center and back up. Let's do one more over, down, around, and back up.

Let's reverse it. Go out, around and back. Up, out, down, around, and back. Up, out, down, around, and back up. One more. Out. Down, around. Back Up. Bend that knee. Slide it out. Hold the pelvis, bend the other knee. Let's try the other side. It crosses a body over, down, around, back, up. Cross over, down, around, back, up, cross over, down.

Let's do one more cross over down this. Try the other way and out, down, around, back up, out, down, around, back, up, out, down. One more time please. And out, down, around, back up, Ben. Very good. And bring it in. So Joe's version was a little bit bigger. There's a wonderful opportunity here for your client to really find that open leak, right? I can remember the other teacher I got the city from was Romana and she would tell me to pull that hat back down using that oh bleak. So let's just do that point there. So let's devastate this leg up and this, cross it over. All right, so now we're going to pull that oblique back down onto that carriage and center that that's that moment she was asking for down and around.

Let's do one more over, down and around. Very good. And Bend your knee and bring it back in. Excellent. All right, let's do a couple. Let's do the one hundreds. Let's get the abdominals activated and some more blood pumping through the body, right? So let's go ahead and this, bring the legs up to a tabletop position. All right. And this, reach your hands up with a big inhale and let's have your palms facing the knees and exhale. Just go ahead, bring your arms down. All right. Shoulders are wide. And when your pulse go, one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, two, two, three, five, two, two, three, four, five, three, two, three, four, five, three, two, three, four, five, four, two, four, five, four, two, three, four, five, five, two, three, four, five, five, two, three, four, five, six, two, four, five, six, two, three, four, five, seven, two, three, four, five, seven, two, four, five, eight, two, three, four, five, eight, two, three, four, five, nine, two, three, four, five, nine, two, four, five, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And release. Very good. And bring it back in.

Lower your legs down. Just relax. Mullen. Very good. So what I liked about those one hundreds was that strong pumping of the arm. We pumped the arm to get the blood to circulate. I can remember Bruce telling me the accent of the arm is a up. It's like we're slapping puddles of water. How about this? Do a single leg, stretch this, continue on with some dominoes here, right? So let's go ahead in.

Just bring one leg up to a table, topics, then the other leg out, and let's place our hands onto the leg correctly. Very good. So we notice the position of the arm. All right, so this arm is cra is reaching out. It's holding leg in its position. The sand is here. We inhale and we act it out and we go switch to one and we go, two good shoulder blades are down. Three good, and four and five. Let's do one more and six. Very good.

Now Bend your knees and bring it back in and return. And we're going to try that one more time now. All right, so what I want you to feel with your legs or is that you hit a target and you keep your target full-size every time bullseye. All right? And try to reach for the same place on your leg and think about how your legs track. All right, so we're hitting a target. We're thinking about how our legs extend from our hip joints and we're concentrated on where we touch the leg and we're trying to do the same thing on the leg. So we bring this, this routine, this good habit into our body during this exercise. Here we go, we go up and we inhale, target and exhale. Good and press good work. Press, good press. There is a target. There is a hands touching the same place.

There's no movement in the upper body. Let's do one more. Very good. And Bend your knees and bring it back in. Let's do a single straight leg. All right, so we're gonna extend one leg up in the ceiling and one leg out. Now your hands come up there behind that and he does a nice high reach. This leg is hitting a target. This is up. My hips are square, my navels in.

And you go pulse, pulse and switch. Reach, reach and switch. One to switch, one to switch, one to switch, one, two, one more, one too. Very good. And bring it back in. Good. We're try it one more time. Again, the leg that is reaching out. Think of a target and also during the pulse pulses think that we try to stabilize that. Like that's not shaking up and down. Alright, so breath, breath, change. And what was demonstrating so beautifully is that reaching leg quality.

He's really separating his toe from his thigh. He's lengthening those legs. He's filling this whole room up with his legs. Here we go. We go up. So here we go. We go. Pulse, pulse. Very good. Switch. Pulse, pulse, switch. Pulse. Paul, switch, pulse call switch. Pulse. Paul, switch. Pulse, pulse. One more pulse. Lovely, very good. And Ben and bring it back in.

All right, good. Let's do the double. All right, so we have the legs in a tabletop position. All right. He's going curl the upper body forward and he is going to extend the legs up to the ceiling. He lowers the legs down, we don't change anything in the back and he brings the legs back up and we go down. Good. And back up. Excellent. There's a long reach of the legs here and back up. Let's do one more and go down. Excellent. Good and back up. And we bend our knees. Good. And we bring it back in.

Very good. Let's go ahead and roll over onto your stomach. All right, now dancers are in a position, a lot of uh, Arab bess. So their leg is up in the air and the back has extended. All right, so we're going to talk about the extension of the spine here, right? So we have the shoulders wide with the scapulars sliding down. His legs are reaching out and the legs hurt together as comfortable. That is comfortable for order to have. All right, so he's going to take an inhale and he's going to lift the spine up, reaching out to the tops of the ears and he comes up.

So that's a lovely extension in the back. He takes the inhale at the top of the movement and he acts hell. He lowers down and we think of going, we're at a bra by Vertebra here. Alright. He pulls the scapulars back, he ends hells and the eye-level goes out and it goes out here to the floor, like he's looking at something. And so it places the hat on top of the spine. He lores back down. Very good.

And let's do one more please. And we go pull the scaps down and we bring it up. Excellent. Good. And then we lower the spine back down. Very good. Let's go ahead and go into a child pose and this, stretch that back out a little bit. So we're stretching that spine now. Okay.

Go ahead and lay back down on your back. And let's place our hands in front of us and let's lift the torso forward. All right, so we have a lovely width across the shoulders there. We have the head in placement in the legs are reaching out and we're pressing the hip bones down into that carriage. We're going to do a single leg and we're going to do a kick kick with a sniff sniff. So we'd go in, kick, kick and release, good kick, kick and release, kick, kick and release. And we go sniff, sniff, and exhale. Very good.

So what I love about what's going on here is we're keeping the pelvis nice and stabilize. Also, he does the kick kick. And you notice that when he reaches the leg back out, he's trying to out reach that other leg. All right, so we're getting that long length from the hip joint out through the toes. Let's try this side and we go kick, kick and reach. Goodness, do it one more time on each side. Kick, kick, and there's the lengthening out and kick, kick and reach. Very good. Now let's go ahead and lay down and place your hands behind your back for the double. All right, so we have the shoulders. Why the hands back here? The legs are together. We do a double now.

We go in and, and he reaches back in. He LinkedIn's a beautiful stretch through the torso, the shoulders, and he lays back down the elbows bend and he goes, kick, kick and reach. Good. And back down. Let's do one more knee side and go kick, kick, kick and reach one more please. And Go kick, kick, kick and reach. Excellent. And lower back down.

And let's go back into our child post and stretch everything out in the net back again. Very good. Okay, let's go ahead and lay on the side and let's face the front here. All right. All right, so we're going to do some sideline kicks here. Some lifts. All right, so we have the hip over the other hip. We have the waist pulled up, there's a little lift up through here. We have the shoulders down in his front. Arbis stabilize the torso. He's going to take the top leg and he's going to reach it out. And we're gonna use this side. Mostly keep that foot flex if you like. Good.

And then we lower it back down. So we're, what we're looking for is for the leg to move, but no shortening of the ways, right? And back down. This is an excellent exercise for your dancers and also your athletes because we do so much front and back and up to the sides. We don't use these muscles a lot. Let's do one more. Very good and let's pull it back in. Let's turn around and try the other side please.

All right, so we have the hips square and it's on top of the other leg. The legs are just a little bit for the body. For the stabilization, we have the waist pulled up and when this not letting the spine sink into the mat, we're still lifting that spine up. And if we notice the head, the head is reaching out. So we have that long spine, we bring the hand here and we go lift the leg up and there's no movement. We could balance a glass of wine right here. Good of Merlow yes and go up. Excellent. And back down. Let's do one more.

Very good and bring it back yet. All right, now we're in this position. Let's do the front leg kick here. So now this leg comes up and he's going to kick the leg forward with two sniffs. Sniff, sniff, and he stretches of Putney XL knee, reaches it back and we get this lovely stretch out through that leg and he goes, kick, kick. And again, we're not moving through that waste. We're not shortening. Good. And we go kick, kick and reach.

Just do one more. Good and go kick, kick and reach. Excellent. And bring it back in. Let's try the other side please. Yes. So the hips are square, long weighs shoulders are wide extension of that spine, just a little bit towards that wall. So the legs reach here, we lift that leg up, it stays in that line there. And we go kick, kick and reach that leg and go kick, kick. Uh, reach. Good kick. Kick an one more. Go, kick, kick.

Very good and reach. Excellent. And bring it back in. Let's go ahead and sit up on the floor on the table here first and then step off onto the floor. Alright, good. So we've done a lot with the dominoes. We've thought about our torso, we've done a lot of work with turnout. All right, so now we're going to kind of put it all together and do a few simple exercises to think about turnout, where it comes from to reinforce a good turnout habit in our body.

So I want you to go ahead and stand right here, right? And we're going to stand in a first position. Your hands are going to go on your shoulders, right? So right now we're looking for this alignment of the body. We have the ear, we have the shoulder, mid rib, hip, knee alignment, and climate. A nice strong plum blind, and we see a natural curve here, or it's going to go into a play now. So he does a demi plate.

The knees follow over that second toe right there. We're still keeping everything in alignment here. And he's gonna do it like a little shot. Say he shot assays and he passes through that first. It's like we're balancing something on the top of his head. Good.

Back in. All right, very good. Let's turn around. Let's try the other side. So he does a demi play. We hold the torso up and he's using all the CREC muscles. The hip stays square. Good. The legs are moving. Excellent. Very good. And bring it back up. Let's turn around once. All right, and let's try it with a straight leg once. All right, so as dancers, we've got Ben, we've got a stretch, we got a relevant a lot and still maintain that turnout. So here we go.

We're straight leg and we go forward and reach. Good leading with that heel leading with that heel. Very good. Excellent. Turns around and it's, try that again and it goes forward. Good. And the hip stays square. There's a nice lift up through the abdominals. Excellent, very good. And bring it back in. Now let's stay there.

Let's go back into our dummy PA position. All right, now we're going to do it backwards so we go toes lead back. This one's a little bit more difficult. Good back. Excellent back. Nice, good. Excellent. Right there. And let's turn around to the other side. Good. And we go, Ben. Good. And we go back and back. Good.

Back and back. Very good and back. Very good. Center. Very good. And let's come over here and sit on the carriage. And let's finish off with a sideman now. So go ahead and you cross your legs. And this is cross legs in front of us. So Cross. Very good. So we're sitting up nice and tall. Long the body. All right. Again, we have that lovely structure, a good architecture of spine, of that plumb line in our body. This hands gonna reach up.

He's gonna fill this room with this movement. He's going to bend this elbow a little bit. He's going to do a side stretch, and he's got a nice fluxion to that and the whole spine is moving. He reaches out of that stretch, he brings it back up. He reaches his arm up, it goes up and over. Good. And we bring it back up. A Sioux Omar time on each side in how, and go.

Exhale. Good, excellent. And back up and go in here and exhale. Very good. And bring it back up. Very good. Nice and tall in your body and you are done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Or.